Wisconsin in winter

It is President’s Day weekend so we came up to the lake house for the long weekend. My employers drove up early with the two youngest kids. I drove up after school with the two oldest.

It was simply an amazing trip. As we drove towards Milwaukee I glanced in my rear view mirror to see the sun setting in a blazing red, orange ball. It was so vivid it made the surrounding sky look like it was on fire.

It was one of those long drives where you drive from daylight into night. They usually seem long but as we continued to drive the moon started to rise. First a tannish ball creeping up. The further north we drove the higher it rose until it was a huge, full, perfect silver moon. The phrase the kept running through my head was…”the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave the luster of mid-day to objects…”

It was breath-taking. The moon gave off its light which then reflected off the icy top of the snow making the world seem like a shimmering fairy world. Other-worldly, with the moonlight throwing shadows on the quiet farm fields. Moonlight spilling in the sun roof of my car, as banks of snow kept silent watch as we drove by.

When we made the turn onto their driveway I climbed out to take down the chain. It was like a diffused sunlight, this full moon. I marveled a minute, there in the snow, at the utter quiet of this winters night. Not a sound, not a whisper, in the faux daylight as I climbed back into the car. As we started up the long curving, drive way the tires began to squeak and crunch on the fresh cold snow. It was a loud sound breaking into the stillness.

A bit later when the car was unpack and two tired kids were tucked in bed, I came to “my” blue room. I tiredly unpack and climbed into jammies and into bed. The room has walls of windows on two sides. I left the shades up on one side and watched the moonlight spill across my bed as I turned out the light.

The whole night has seemed a bit magical. For a while all the cold, snowy, darkness of the winter seemed to fade away and I remembered that this season can also be just magical.